Waterloo, Canada: Most Canadian cannabis consumers have transitioned to the legal marketplace following nationwide legalization, according to survey data published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review.
An international team of investigators from Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom assessed trends in marijuana-related purchases among 2,686 current cannabis consumers.
Seventy-eight percent of respondents said that “all their cannabis came from legal sources in the past year.”
The data is consistent with prior studies finding that most Canadian consumers have transitioned from the unregulated market to the legal adult-use marketplace following legalization.
Researchers attribute consumers’ transition to falling prices. “Prices of legal cannabis products have decreased substantially over the first 5 years after federal legalization in Canada, with a narrowing differential between the cost of legal and illegal products,” they reported.
The study’s authors concluded: “These findings demonstrate a consistent and substantial transition to legal retail sources in Canada over the first 5 years of legalization, … reflecting considerable progress towards Canada’s objective of displacing illegal sources through the creation of a legal cannabis market.”
Data compiled in the United States similarly reports that a growing percentage of consumers are switching to the legal marketplace. According to a 2023 survey, 52 percent of consumers residing in legal states said that they primarily sourced their cannabis products from brick-and-mortar establishments.
A separate US economic study reports that consumers are most likely to transition to the legal marketplace in jurisdictions where state-licensed retailers are widely available. According to the study’s findings, “States with roughly 20 to 40 legal regulated stores per 100,000 residents, in general, have captured 80 percent to 90 percent of all cannabis sales in the legal market.”
Full text of the study, “Self-reported cannabis prices and expenditures from legal and illegal sources five years after legalization of non-medical cannabis in Canada,” appears in Drug and Alcohol Review.